Lux Express has bought 20 new Scania buses, investing some EUR 7 million in their new rolling stock, and is planning to increase trip numbers on the Estonian domestic as well as the international market.
In Estonia, the company intends to focus on Tartu in the second half of the year. Passenger numbers to and from Tartu have increased by 30% over the first five months this year, compared to the same period last year. Additional departures will also be added to the Tartu-Parnu, Tartu-Narva, and Tallinn-Tartu-Voru routes.
Starting as early as July 1, the number of departures on the Tallinn-Parnu route will be increased from 10 to 11. On the Tallinn-Narva route, the company will replace four Simple Express departures with Lux Express ones, upgrading their service in terms of both cost and comfort. This will put the number of departures on this route at 15 per day and direction.
Already on June 1, Lux Express added an additional 10th daily departure to its Tallinn-St. Petersburg route. Passenger numbers have been on the rise here as well, going up by 7% YoY, the company said.
A route entirely operated abroad is the St. Petersburg-Helsinki bus, where Lux Express has had a whopping 40% more passengers over the last few months compared to the first half of 2018. The number of departures is thus increasing there as well, most recently going from four to five a day.
One of the busiest international routes is the Tallinn-Riga connection, where Lux Express is now at 14 trips a day in each direction. The Tallinn-Warsaw route, at the same time, is being increased just this week from three to four trips a day. An additional change announced here is that there won’t be any stops between Vilnius and Warsaw, which saves a full two hours’ travel time, Lux Express said.
The first new buses were delivered to Lux Express in the beginning of June, with the remainder to be delivered in installments of two or three at a time until the end of the third quarter this year.
In the fall, Lux Express is planning to introduce a monthly ticket for domestic trips in Estonia at a price of less than EUR 100.
“The monthly cost has to be attractive enough for a person to no longer opt for their car,” member of Lux Express’ management, Paul Kristjan Lilje, said, adding that the price was expected to be in the range of EUR 90-95.
Also in the fall, Lux Express will start pilot tests of a door-to-door solution that would include transport by taxi from the passenger’s home to the bus station, and from the destination station to the customer’s final destination of the trip.
“The main point is that in the future, the passenger would no longer have to put together a plan for their trip, but that a complete solution would be offered to them by the service provider,” Lilje said. (ERR/Business World Magazine)